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The Peak District, the southern extremity of the Pennines, is in northern England, and 542 square miles of it are a National Park, mostly in northern Derbyshire. The Peaks are not high mountains, the highest point being Kinder Scout at 2,088 feet. It is mostly limestone uplands, peaty moorland, and wooded dales, and is visited by thousands and thousands of nature-loving tourists each year who like to walk through it and often camp out. This is Stephen Boothıs country. He knows it well, and you can tell from his word picture descriptions that, bleak as it may seem at times, he loves it. His first mystery, Black Dog, was set here, as is his second, Dancing With the Virgins. The virgins are nine rocks in a circle with a tenth one, the fiddler, outside. Here a young woman was murdered and her body arranged to look as if she were dancing. Detective Constable Ben Cooper is among those assigned to the case. He is a native of the area and thus of greater value to the investigation than his rank would imply. An easy-going amiable man, he works with his official partner, the loud, lusty Todd Weenink, and at times he is also thrown in with his partner from Black Dog, Diane Fry, an ambitious, sometimes cynical city girl who seems to have something less than a love-hate relationship with him, but its definitely an ambiguous one. She is now an acting detective sergeant, a promotion that he perhaps should have gotten, but Fry seems more resentful about it than Cooper does. The police investigation of the murder stumbles into a plethora of changing relationships. The murder of Jenny Weston was the second incident in the area. A lawyer, Maggie Crew, had been attacked earlier and was horribly disfigured as a result. Now she has lost any memory of the time of the attack. Fry and Crew have something in common, and the policewoman tries to draw Crew out as the only witness potentially able to describe the attacker. We learn later that the murdered woman also had a connection to Crew. Two park rangers, one older and experienced and the other a neophyte and hero worshipper, are concerned because the murder locale is in their area. We learn more and more that a farm that can be seen below this general spot is also involved, a farm whose owner is almost destitute and whose wife has left him. Even Cooper has unpleasant relations with the brother and sister-in-law with whom he lives. No one seems happy, upbeat, satisfied with their lot. All concerned have their own problems. Two hippy-like young men living in a broken camping vehicle are viciously attacked by vigilantes. A once highly respected person is also put under duress by vigilantes after his computerıs hard drive reveals an interest in child pornography. Another young girl who once was living with the murdered Weston has disappeared. Westonıs parents have been harassed by someone who holds the father responsible for the accidental death of a child. Illegal dog fights have a bearing on the case. These relationships and others show author Booth as a deft revealer of character. He counterpoints the moodiness of the people against the bleak majesty of the peak district. He subtly draws us into thought patterns that gradually change as we begin to realize the complexity of the situation. All is not cut and dried. The author contrasts the present murky situation with the way things were during the time of Cooperıs dead heroic policeman father, and he has Cooper observe that ³things had changed since his fatherıs day. These days things no longer seemed to be so clear cut. There no longer seemed to be the villains and the innocent members of the public, the black and the white, the good and the evil, with the police protecting the one against the other. These days there were only shades of grey, when everyone was classed as a victim, and evil no longer officially existed.² And weıre reminded that this remote area is still an integral part of the world at large when we hear the woman café owner singing snatches of ³Nessun Dorma.² Cooper jeopardizes his career because of what Fry calls his ³bleeding heart.² He understands and pardons too much, but worse he does not report everything he knows or suspects. Yet along with Fry he plays a leading part in the denouement, which happens upon us like an onion peeled layer by layer. And we come to these last two pages with all resolved, except that the murderer of Jenny Weston has not yet been identified. But in the dialogue between Cooper and Fry, without the murderer being named, we learn that they know -- just as we now know. Booth is a triple-threat author, setting, character, plot, he has it all. His descriptions leave the reader wondering, how does he observe so much? His perception takes what could have been a simple case and turns it into an elegant story. I know his third mystery novel also occurring in the Peak District is already out and has been much praised, and Iıll be looking forward to reading it.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, November 2002
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